Monday, 29 July 2013

A
total of 35 teams from 21 universities from all over Malaysia were
competing in Freescale Cup 2013, hosted in Dewan Tun Canselor,
Multimedia University on 20 July 2013 (Saturday). The Freescale Cup is a competition of a team of University students to build a model car that will race for speed around an unknown track with various obstacles. This year, participants have to program a FRDM-KL25Z: Freescale Freedom Development Board with Freescale Cup Shield to interface with camera and motors to intelligently follow a black line on the track.

Students from Multimedia University Cybertron Club have volunteered to help the organizer laying out the racing tracks. They were also helping in the preparations the day before the event.

MMU Vice President of Academic Prof. Dr. Ong Duu Sheng received a token of appreciation giving to MMU for sponsoring the venue for the event. From the comments of the organizer and participants from other universities, it is a great venue and gives a very pleasing experience.

Swinburne University won the first place with a cash prize of RM5000 with their outstanding car speed. They will join the Global Freescale Cup challenge held at Harbin, China, August 22-24 this year. University Malaysia Sabah and Monash University won the second (RM3000) and third place (RM1500) respectively.

MMU Cyber 1 from Multimedia University (Ms. Shameeny Raj A/P Siva Raj, Ms. Asuvani A/P D. Vasudhevan, Ms. Stephanie A/P Anthony Louis) has won the Best Design Award, a cash prize of RM500 with their unique Batman-inspired design. Spectators especially young kids were seems excited whenever this car was racing in the track.

All three MMU teams, MMU Cyber 1, MMU Cyber 2 (Mr. Yap Hon Shin, Mr. Heng Jia Wei, Mr. Ling Eng Han) and MMU Cyber 3 (Mr. Morteza Ozlati Moghadam, Mr. Mohamad Mahdi Saemi, Mr. Nima Shokohfar) under the advisory of Mr. Yap Wen Jiun and Mr. Lo Yew Chiong from Faculty of Engineering successfully completed the preliminary round to qualify for the final round joining the other 19 teams. All MMU teams then proceed to complete the more challenging final round and the fastest car among them, MMU Cyber 3 did give a good challenge to the top three teams with a just a few seconds slower.

Setup Google API Access
2. Open Google API Console
3. If you haven't created an API project yet, click the "Create Project …"
If you have created API projects before, choose Other projects > Create
4. Enter a name and click Create Project
5. Copy down the SENDER_ID from the url (e.g. https://code.google.com/apis/console/?pli=1#project:XXXXXXXXXXXX:services where XXXXXXXXXXXX is the SENDER_ID)
6. On the Services page, enable "Google Cloud Messaging for Android"
7. On the API Access page, select "Create new Server key..." and proceed with Create
8. Under the Key for server apps, copy down the API key

(Optional) change the LLMInfotrafik to another Twitter user
17. Select Deploy to App Engine
18. Click on App Engine project settings...
19. Enter the Application Identifier from Step 11 to Application ID, click OK and proceed to Deploy
20. Open the link http://<Application ID>.appspot.com in a browser and click Codelab and you should see the list of Twitter search results. Click refresh you will get the list of Twitter search results again.
21. Add these imports

22. Deploy again and refresh http://<Application ID>.appspot.com and click Codelab and you should still see the list of Twitter search results. But click refresh this time you will get "No new tweet" as now only new tweet will be fetched in every refresh.

46. Create a new Java Class in in Codelab Android Project by selecting New->Class
47. Enter Name "RegisterTask", Superclass "android.os.AsyncTask" and click Finish
48. Add these into the top of the class

69. Deploy the Google App Engine application again
70. Select the Codelab Android project and then select Run->Run As->Android Application to run the Android Application either on an emulator or a device. For emulator, remember to add a Google Account first in Menu->Settings->Accounts & Sync->Add account->Google

Saturday, 10 December 2011

I am very honoured to be invited to present in TEDxMMU 2011, the independently organized TED event in Multimedia University. Presenting an interesting talk within 18 minutes is challenging and this is the only presentation that I ever did a rehearsal and I do fell good to complete it almost at the 18-minute mark. The details of the event are as follow:

The synopsis of my talk:
"Smartphone has many features that can enhance the design of an embedded system such as Internet connection, voice recognition or camera captures. There are however a few problems that restrict such integration such as the high cost of a smartphone and limited direct data connection to a smartphone. With the introduction of Android Accessory, Android devices can be connected to a microcontroller via USB connection that provides identification and bulk transfer via input/output streams. Foreseeing more low cost Android devices and the ease of getting hardware components for developing Android Accessory, there will be an increase of integration of Android devices into an embedded system in various areas such as robotics, consumer products, medical products and educations."

The video of my presentation is supposed to be recorded and published later but it is not available due to technical problems. Some of the TEDxMMU 2011 videos are however available. However this is a great event for me.

Tuesday, 4 October 2011

The project "Remote Controlled Blimp with Video Surveillance" is a joint project between several Multimedia University academicians as an Interactive Installation for the DA+C Festival 2011 (Digital Art and Cultural Festival) mainly from 15 to 17 July 2011 at Suffolk House, George Town, Penang, Malaysia. The project is named "FRANC" as a tribute to Captain Francis Light (notice that the name Francis Light can be separated into "Franc is Light", hence the name of "Franc" which refers to the Helium-filled blimp which of course is lighter than the air, therefore "is light". The main focus of the project is to continuously provides the birds' eye video feed of the interior of Suffolk House.

During initial testing, there are problems discovered with the first design. The EyeCam wireless video requires line-of-sight and is very susceptible to interference (various 2.4GHz signals from WiFi, Bluetooth etc.). The BlinkRC also sometimes fails to connect but eventually we discover that there is a loose connection on the BlinkRC PCB board and is finally fixed. However FRANC version 2 is still being developed as a backup.

FRANC V2 with Android and IOIO

The version 2 is mainly based on Android, which covers both the control and the video surveillance:

An Android application has been developed to receive the exact same UDP data packets as in Version 1 to drive the blimp. The PWM signals to drive the motors are sent out from an IOIO board which connects to the Android phone via USB using the ADB protocol.

An existing Android application "IP Webcam" is used to stream the video capture.

Redesign the circuit board by integrating the Blimpduino circuit and the IOIO circuit.

Reduce the length of the USB cable

Further advancement is to add interactivity to the blimp for autonomous movement as the remote control is kind of difficult due to the combination of winds, momentum and human reaction. For example the WeBlimp project shown in the video below:

Monday, 3 October 2011

"Integration of Android and NFC into Home Entertainment System" is one of the Multimedia UniversityFaculty of Engineering Final Year Project proposal for session 2011/12. The project is inspired by Google IO 2011 Day 1 keynote about the Android@Home as shown below:

The main feature of the system will be described as the scenario below:

Once a selected music album cover attached with NFC (Near Field Communication) tag is brought near to an embedded NFC reader in a home speaker system or an Android phone with NFC capability (Nexus S), the home entertainment system will start playing the song, and the Android phone will display the information of the album.

The project will be divided into two parts:

The development of the embedded NFC reader in a home speaker system using either a USB NFC reader such as ACR122U NFC Contactless Smart Card Reader connected to a Windows Presentation Foundation application on a PC or an embedded NFC module such as SM130 13.56 MHz RFID Mifare Module connected to a network enabled Arduino or mbed embedded system. The NFC reader will continuously waiting to read an NFC tag brought near to it and immediately send the data read to a home entertainment system to trigger the playing of an album.

The development of the Android application on an Android device that waiting to read from an NFC tag to trigger the playing of an album similar to part 1 and to display the information retrieved from the home entertainment system about the album.